Continuously produced panty hose with attached panty

ABSTRACT

BIKINI-TYPE PANTY HOSE WITH ATTACHED PANTY AND A METHOD FOR PRODUCING SUCH PANTY HOSE WHEREIN THE PANTY PORTION IS FORMED FROM THE PANTY HOSE GARMENT ITSELF. THE BIKINI-TYPE HOSE IS MADE BY APPROXIMATELY SCALLOPING OPPOSITE UPPER CORNERS OF A PANTY HOSE GARMENT TO CREATE LEG OPENINGS AND A PANTY CROTCH PORTION, SEWING THE LEG OPENINGS AND CROTCH PORTION AND INVERTING THE UPPER PORTION ALONG A PREDETERMINED LINE TO FORM A PANTY. ELASTICIZED MATERIAL IS ATTACHED AT THE WAIST AND LEG OPENINGS.

Dec. 7, 1971 G, L Ew|s 3,624,841

CONTINUOUSLY PRODUCED PANTY HOSE WITH ATTACHED PANTY Filed Nov. 25, 1969 2 Sheets-Sheet l.

1H f l umm i Ummm X FIG. 2

ATTORNEYS Dec; 7, 1971 Filed Nov. 25, 1969 LO Q Ll.

G. Ll-:wls 3,624,841 I CONTINUOUSLY PRODUCED PANTY HOSE WITH ATTACHED PANTY 2 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTOR GERALD LEWIS ATTORNEYS United States Patent O 3,624,841 CONTINUOUSLY PRODUCED PANTY HOSE WITH ATTACHED PANTY Gerald Lewis, Riverdale, N.Y., assignor to Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company, New York, N.Y. Filed Nov. 25, 1969, Ser. No. 879,724 Int. Cl. A41b 9/04 U.S. Cl. 2--224 R 8 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Bikini-type panty hose with attached panty and a method for producing such panty hose wherein the panty portion is formed from the panty hose garment itself. The bikini-type panty hose is made by appropriately scalloping opposite upper corners of a panty hose garment to create leg openings and a panty crotch portion, sewing the leg openings and crotch portion and inverting the upper portion along a predetermined line to form a panty. Elasticized material is attached at the waist and leg openings.

This invention relates to panty hose garments and methods of panty hose fabrication. More particularly, the invention is related to a new method for producing a bikini-type panty hose with attached panty and the improved garment resulting therefrom.

A current trend in female fashions requires exposure of the midriff and lower abdomen areas when hip-hugging pants or skirts or dresses with large area cut-outs are worn. Consequently, women desire to wear bikini-style panties and panty hose so that the tops of these undergarments should not be visible.

Some manufacturers have provided the fashion-conscious woman with a single garment combining the features of a bikini panty with a bikini panty hose. Such a garment, when made of ultra sheer material, provides a streamlined Ifigure silhouette. This garment also has advantage in that the bikini panty, being elasticized at the leg openings, assists the panty hose in preventing slippage. In addition, the user has a unitary garment for simpliiied purchasing, wearing and washing.

-One prior approach to manufacture of this bikini panty hose required the separate manufacture of panty hose and bikini panty and merely sewing the two garments together at the top. While this method achieved the desired result, the prior costly manufacturing process was continued, since two separate garments were still necessary for production.

The method disclosed herein obviates this uneconomical and unnecessarily cumbersome approach. The present method requires all manufacturing operations to be continuously performed on a unitary panty. hose garment.

It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to produce panty hose of standard or bikini design with attached panty by a method involving continuous operations on a single garment.

It is another object of the present invention to significantly simplify and economize the method of manufacturing panty hose of either standard or bikini design.

It is an additional object to manufacture a continuously produced panty hose having attached panty where the panty portion may be worn either outside or inside the panty hose portion.

In accordance with the present invention, a method of fabricating panty hose having attached panty comprises forming a panty hose garment by slitting and sewing a pair of tubular elongated leg blanks to crotch depth and removing opposite upper corner portions of the panty hose to form leg openings, leaving a narrow top edge portion. The method also includes the steps of sewing the narrow top edge portion and leg openings and inverting the top 3,624,841 Patented Dec. 7, 1971 ICC portion of said garment along a predetermined line to form a panty portion.

For a lbetter understanding of the present invention together with other and further objects thereof, reference is made to the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, and the scope of the invention will be pointed out in the appended claims.

In the drawings:

FIGS. 1 through 5 represent frontal plan views of the panty hose garment as it undergoes the various fabrication steps of this invention.

FIG. 6 represents a frontal plan view of the panty hose garment showing the panty portion external to the stocking portions with a waist band attached.

Referring first to FIG. l, shown are two no-seam elongated tubular hosiery leg blanks 10. These blanks are knitted in conventional manner and generally are pre-boarded to produce the standard leg and foot shaping desired. If the leg blanks are pre-boarded, the two blanks are aligned so that the boarding lines are parallel as shown in FIG. 1.

The two leg blanks are then joined in conventional manner as indicated in FIG. 2 by slitting the leg blanks to a predetermined, desired crotch depth 12 and then sewing a continuons seam 11 to form a unitary panty hose garment 13.

In FIG. 3, the garment 13 is shown with upper corner portions removed to form leg openings 14. A previously determined pattern will control the shape `of the material to be removed. The material is cut along arc-shaped lines leaving a narrow top portion which is to become the crotch portion of the panty.

Leg elastic 15 is attached along the arc-shaped leg openings 14 as shown in FIG. 4 to form finished selvedge leg openings. The crotch line 16 is also sewn at this point. Any lace or other decorative touches may be added to the leg openings or panty portion if desired.

The upper part of the garment 13 is then inverted and folded to form an internal panty portion 17 as indicated in FIG. 5. The fold line 19 is determined by placing the sewn panty crotch 16 perpendicular to the seam line 11 at the crotch point 12.

Elasticized waist band material 20 is then sewn onto the garment along fold line 19 to form the desired bikinitype panty hose having an attached panty shown in FIG. 6.

It is clear that the length of the initially sewn crotch seam will determine the overall panty height since the crotch point will be the lower limit after foldover. The removed scalloped portions wonld normally be cut from the upper half portion between the crotch point 12 and the top of the garment in anticipation of folding this part over.

A significant feature of this garment is that it is reversible as shown in FIG. 61. By inverting each panty hose leg portion through its corresponding panty leg opening, the garment is transformed to a bikini panty hose with panties external to the hose rather than internal. The panty hose may have less tendency to sag when the panties are worn external to the hose. However, the wearer is able to choose the more comfortable of the two garment arrangements to suit ones pleasure.

After the garment is completely fabricated according to the above described method, it may be dyed to a desirable color and prepared for final packaging. There is no necessity, however, to limit the dying step to a post-fabrication stage since the leg blanks could be predyed, either in a conventional manner ywhere dye tubs are used or employing -a dye boarding machine which is common practice in the art. If it is desired to manufacture bikini panty hose having stronger material in the upper leg and panty portion, the original leg blanks may have appropriately placed welts at their upper portions. These welts are knitted with coarser yarn lfor added strength.

The above description indicates the simplicity of the method of the present invention. Instead of the prior art method of producing two separate garments using a multitude of steps, all operations are performed on a unitary garment, in a substantially reduced number of steps, thereby effecting extensive economic savings. The resulting garment is also signicantly stronger at the waist since there is no seam at the point where panties and panty hose are joined.

Although the previous description has specifically mentioned bikini-type panty hose, there is no reason to limit the invention to panty hose that does not reach the waist. The elongated hosiery leg blanks can be made sufliciently long so that upon foldover, the completed panty hose garment reaches the waist. Thus the previously described method can clearly be applied to standard (waist type) panty hose. The resultant garment of either type provides advantage in that the panty portion provides additional support to keep the hose in place.

Accordingly, while there has been described what are considered to be the preferred embodiments of this invention, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the invention and it is, therefore,

aimed to include all such changes and modications as fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. A method of fabricating panty hose comprising:

slitting and sewing a pair of tubular elongated leg blanks to a predetermined depth approximating the portion of the crotch of the resulting panty hose garment to form leg portions and a body portion;

removing opposite upper corner portions of the tbody portion, leaving front and back narrow top edges and sloping front and back edges where said corner portions were removed;

sewing said narrow top edges together to form a crotch portion and leg openings; and

drawing each leg portion through its corresponding leg opening and inwardly drawing the body portion to a predetermined fold line to form an external panty portion` and a partially internal hose portion.

2. The method as described in claim 1 wherein an elasticized waist band is attached at said predetermined fold line.

3. The method as described in claim 1 wherein elasticized material is attached to said leg openings to form nished selvedge openings.

4. The method as described in `claim 1 wherein the upper corner portions are removed by cutting the garment along oppositely sloped, arc-shaped lines.

5. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the narrow top edges of the garment is folded over to approximately crotch depth.

6. The method as described in claim 1 wherein said tubular leg blanks include upper Welt portions.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,128,475 4/1964 Rice ct al. 2-224 H. HAMPTON HUNTER, Primary Examiner 

